Fire and Ice
by ginger57
Summary: Bosco looks back on two women in his life after Goodbye to Camelot


Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Third Watch or any of its characters.

Song Credits: "My Immortal" by Evanescence

Bosco looks back on two women in his life after "Goodbye to Camelot"

"**Fire and Ice"**

I still think about them, even now. Maybe not as much as I did at first, but every now and then I'll see someone who looks like one of them or sounds like them, and the memories come flooding back. They're not always good ones, but most of the time they are. Anyway, they're all I have now. I've made my peace with it and gone on. They couldn't have been any more different, the two of them. They were fire and ice to each other, but to me they were a big part of my life. I wouldn't change having known either one. I'm a better cop, a better person, today for having known them. You could say I loved each of them, in a different way, once. In some ways, I guess I always will…

_When you cried, I'd wipe away all of your tears_

_When you'd scream, I'd fight away all of your fears_

She was my first partner. She turned out to be a lot more than that to me. Even now, after all we've been through, I can still say that. It didn't end up as I would have liked, but the years we had together I wouldn't change for anything. She was there for me so many times, when I needed someone to talk to, someone to turn to, someone to lean on. I knew I could depend on her to always be there for me. It was a stupid thing I did, asking her to shoot for me. I often wonder what our lives would be like now if I hadn't done that. But I had sensed a change in her long before that. It was like she had moved on from me, as if I were a part of her old life, the life she left behind with Fred, a life she wanted to leave behind forever. I called her on it once. I asked her, point blank, "When did you stop believing in me?" I wanted her to say something, anything. I wanted her to say that she never stopped believing in me, that she did what she did out of some kind of love for me. But she didn't say it, she didn't say anything at all. And that was pretty much it for us. I've come to believe though that she did what she did because maybe she cared too much. She had seen too much of my pain first-hand to ever want to see me hurt like that again. In her own way, she was still looking out for me, for my best interests. That's what I want to believe now, what I have to believe for all those years to have made any sense.

_And I've held your hand through all of those years_

_But you still have all of me…_

- - - - - - - - - -

_You used to captivate me_

_By your resonating light_

How do I put a paradox into words? How I felt about her once, how I feel about her now. She was my obsession, she was my distraction, my lover, my enemy, my greatest fantasy, my worst nightmare. Yet in the end, she showed me something that will stay with me for the rest of my life. She saved a lot of lives that day, at the expense of her own. Hell, she might have even saved mine. And for that alone, I'll always remember her.

…_your presence still lingers here_

_and it won't leave me alone…_

It took me a long time to get over the guilt I felt at first. Like I should have done something or said something to stop her. It was only after I found out how sick she was that I began to understand it. I can't say I agree with what she did, but at least now I understand why she did it. I couldn't figure out at first why she wanted me there, in that car with her. Why she chose me, out of all the others, to be the last person from the 55th to see her alive. Why she wanted me to witness what she was about to do. But what was so surreal that day is crystal clear to me now.

That last two minutes in the car said more to me than all the time before when we were together. "There's no one I'd rather have backing me up." Those words will stay with me for the rest of my life. She believed in me. She trusted me when I said I could see. She took me at my word. When she kissed me, it wasn't a kiss of passion or promise, but rather of resignation, of asking forgiveness -- her way of settling things with me, her way of telling me she had loved me too once. There was something too final in it, but I was too stunned at the time time to realize it. If anything, I was curious for more. I wanted to ask her why she did some of the things she did if she felt that way about me. I wanted to ask her why she had never told me that before. Anyway, I fully expected to see her walk out of there, pompous as always, suspects in tow. When the place exploded and the realization hit me she was gone, a part of me died along with her. The part that would never get to know what else was behind that kiss.

_But now I'm bound by the life you left behind_

_Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams_

_Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me… _

- - - - - - - - - - -

I still see Faith every now and then, usually over a case we're working on. She's damn good at what she does, and I told her so. She seems happy now, like she finally found her real niche. I like to think I maybe had a part in that. As for Cruz, I've gone to her grave a few times. Said some things I should have told her a long time ago. I think she heard me.

As for me, like I said, life goes on. I've gone on and made my peace with both of them. Looking back, is there anything I might have done different with them? Something I should have said or did when I didn't, some things I said or did that I shouldn't have? Sure. But would I change having had either one of them in my life when I did? Hell no, not for the world, not for the world…


End file.
